Comparison

Listen vs Lichess

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Listen

This game trains your hearing by presenting sound cues that you must respond to correctly to navigate obstacles and absorb energy. It uses adaptive algorithms to adjust difficulty to your individual performance level, based on principles of perceptual learning and auditory neuroscience.

Highlights
  • Auditory training game
  • Perceptual learning principles
  • Reward-based framework
  • Adaptive difficulty algorithms
  • Sound cue response
  • Brain fitness
Features
Read full description

Listen is an auditory training game produced by the University of California Riverside (UCR) Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Well-being; A research unit focused on brain fitness methods and applications. Listen integrates principles of perceptual learning and auditory neuroscience in a reward-based game framework that reinforces program adherence and maintains training efficacy. In the game experience, players find themselves in control of a wisp that must navigate through perilous obstacles by responding appropriately to specific sound cues in order to absorb energy from objects in the environment. The sound cues are based upon language primitives and sound features that selectively drive neurons in the auditory cortex of the brain. While at first the sounds are easy to discriminate, the game’s adaptive algorithms measure each players’ ability to discern the sounds and trains players at their individual threshold of performance. Give it a listen and train your hearing.

About

Lichess

Play chess online with millions of users, participate in tournaments, solve puzzles, and analyze games. This free and open-source application offers a comprehensive chess experience for players of all levels, with features for learning and casual play.

Highlights
  • Real-time and correspondence chess
  • Arena tournaments
  • Chess puzzles
  • Game analysis with Stockfish
  • Interactive study feature
  • Chess clock
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Lichess is a free/libre, open-source chess application powered by volunteers and donations. Today, Lichess users play more than five million games every day. Lichess is one of the most popular chess websites in the world while remaining 100% free. The following features are available right now: - play real time or correspondence chess - play arena tournaments - play against online bots - solve chess puzzles from a wide variety of themes, online or offline - race against the clock in Puzzle Storm - analyse your games with latest Stockfish locally or on the server - board editor - study chess with a collaborative and interactive study feature - learn board coordinates - play over the board with a friend - watch live chess broadcasts from all major chess tournaments - watch Lichess TV and online streamers - use a chess clock for your over the board games - many different board themes and piece sets - custom background themes - translated into 55 languages

Screenshots

Listen4 screens
Lichess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Lichess at 4.0 against Listen's 3.1. Lichess also leads on ratings volume (604 vs 12) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 6 weeks). Listen's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.6). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Lichess holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Lichess has 604 ratings behind it against 12, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 44% of Listen's written reviews are positive against 51% of Lichess's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Listen ships an update every 6 weeks, Lichess fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on June 4, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Listen versus Lichess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterListenLichess
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.1 (12 ratings)4.0 (604 ratings) — better
Positive reviews44.4% of reviews51.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings12604 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
Best chart rank—#80 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size129 MB83 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNortheastern UniversityLICHESS.ORG

Customer experience

Listen

All ratings12 ratings
Positive58.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative41.7%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive44.4%
Neutral0.0%
Negative55.6%

Lichess

All ratings604 ratings
Positive73.2%
Neutral5.5%
Negative21.4%
Written reviews526 reviews
Positive51.3%
Neutral10.6%
Negative38.0%

Bugs and requests

Listen

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Lichess

Reported bugs

1 issue
  • Swipe-to-go-back gesture interferes with piece placement

Requested features

3 requests
  • Name of opening in opening explorer
  • Ability to add and subtract additional things on the homepage
  • Reset/replay button on puzzles

In-app purchases

None

Listen

No in-app purchases

None

Lichess

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Listen free?
Listen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Lichess free?
Lichess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Listen or Lichess?
Lichess is rated higher. Listen averages 3.1 out of 5 from 12 ratings, while Lichess averages 4.0 from 604 ratings.
Do Listen or Lichess have ads?
Neither Listen nor Lichess shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Listen or Lichess?
Listen ships an update every 6 weeks, and Lichess fortnightly. Most recently, Listen was updated on June 4, 2026 and Lichess on September 25, 2026.

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